Is Google’s Contact Lens Tied to Google Glass?

Are Google 's contact lenses for diabetics a precursor to a more socially acceptable version of Google Glass?

Google Thursday said it is working on a special contact lens that would help diabetics measure their blood-sugar levels. The technology is a long way from commercial release and Google has said that it has no interest in manufacturing and selling such contact lenses. So why make an announcement?

That’s not clear, but there are intriguing signs pointing to connections with Google Glass, the geeky-looking futuristic eyewear that puts a screen in its users’ field of vision.

Google’s blog post announcing the lens was co-authored by Babak Parviz and Brian Otis, University of Washington researchers who are now working at the search giant’s secretive Google[x] lab where Glass is being developed. Parviz founded the Google Glass project. Otis joined Google[x] more recently.

In 2009, Parviz wrote in an article for IEEE Spectrum, an engineering magazine, that “a new generation of contact lenses built with very small circuits and [light emitting diodes] promises bionic eyesight.”

Thursday’s blog post says the contact lens team is exploring integrating tiny LED lights that would indicate when glucose levels cross certain thresholds.

Intriguingly, Parviz and Otis were working on essentially the same project with Microsoft a few years ago, described at the time as a “functional contact lens that monitors blood sugar without needles.” At the time, they said they envisioned a way to display information “in the lens wearer’s view.”

Microsoft Friday published a blog post highlighting its previous work. It didn’t offer an update, but it appears no current work is being done as the researchers have since decamped to Google.

When Microsoft was working on the project, there were clearer connections between the glucose sensor contact lenses and the potential for a socially acceptable form of electronic eyewear. Microsoft’s 2011 release quoted senior researcher Desney Tan saying the lens “provides us with the ability to have displays that we don’t have to pull out and look at, and that require we take our attention away from the real world.”

In the release, Tan continued, “They aren’t socially quite as intrusive as wearing the goggles that are sort of the state of the art in the field right now.”